WuUm I ' «»ff2 jb» ^^1 ■ H / o . 1. 4 . 13 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON. N. J. Presented by The. Widow of GeongfeTSw^an, ^& BV 1560 .P46 1892 Pentecost, Geo. F. 1842- 1920. Bible studies from the Old and New Testaments BY THE SAME AUTHOR. — ••o$o»- — IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK; or, The Profit and Pleasure of Bible Study, with introductions by Revs. Joseph Cook and J. H. Vincent, D.D. OUT OF EGYPT ; Bible Readings on the Book of Exodus. A SOUTH WINDOW; or, Keep Yourselves in the Love of God. Each 12mo.— Cloth, 75 cents; Paper Covers, 35 cents. BIBLE STUDIES; covering the International S. S. Lessons for 1888, 1889, 1890, and 1891. Each 12mo. — Cloth, $1.00 ; Paper Covers, CO cents. *** For Sale by Booksellers, or sent post- paid on receipt of price by the publishers. A. S. BARNES & CO., 731 Broadway, NEW YORK. /*2 ; xiv, 1-7 381 Golden Text: I have sent thee to be a light of the Gentiles. —Acts xiii, 47. XLIX.— Dec. 4.— Work Among the Gentiles. Acts xiv, 8-22 .389 Golden Text: In his name shall the Gentiles trust.— Matt, xii, 21. L.— Dec 11.— The Apostolic Council. Acts xv, 12-29. 398 Golden Text : Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they.— Acts xv, 11. LI.— Dec 18.— Review 407 LII.— Dec 25.— Optional Lessons.— 1. The Birth of Christ ; A Christmas Lesson. Luke ii, 8-20. . . .408 Golden Text : Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. —Luke ii, 10. 2. The Quarterly Temperance Lesson. Rom. xiv, 12-23 417 Golden Text : We then that are strong ought to bear the in- firmities of the weak.— Rom. xv, 1. INTRODUCTORY. . No other prophet among God's ancient people compares with Isaiah for magnificence of style, majesty of composition, and com- prehension of subject. Though we are in practical ignorance as to who he was, except that he was the son of Amoz, and that he lived and prophesied during the four reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah and Jerusalem, we are sure from the incidental biography contained in his writings that he was a man of exalted character both for spirituality and righteousness, that he was a loyal patriot, and at the same time a faithful servant of God, who, while passionately loving his people, did not overlook their faults nor spare to denounce their sins and declare the judgments of God against them. He was at once the companion and yet not the sycophant of kings, as may be seen by his faithful and unspar- ing rebuke of Hezekiah, which reminds us much of Nathan's faith- fulness with David. His point of view was that of an intense patriot and faithful servant of Jehovah, and his point of sight that of the final restoration of Judea and Israel to a true spirituality and the ultimate triumph of Messiah's kingdom in the world. In the meantime he foresaw the captivity and subsequent dispersion of his people, and knew its reason. While he pronounced the judgments of God against them, he never failed to speak words of promise and consolation to them. His whole prophecy may be likened to a range of mountains broken by deep valleys, which occasionally spread out into wide expanses of undulating plain. The mountain range is the history of Judea and Israel, the occasional great peaks are the Messianic prophecies, and the uplands toward which all his writings lead, are the final heights of Millennial glory wdiieh await the people of God, Jew and Gentile together. The final exaltation of the ancient people in connection with the glorious reign of Mes- siah almost entirely filled his prophetic vision, and yet he does not fail to notice the intervening fact of that Messiah's humiliation ; the climax of such foresight being reached in the wonderful fifty-third chapter. It has been remarked how little and yet how much of xii INTRODUCTORY. Messianic prophecy there is in Isaiah. Though, in proportion to the whole matter of the writings, the allusions to the first advent of Messiah are few, yet whenever ho does directly set the suffering Saviour forth, it is done so with such luminous grandeur, that there can be no mistake as to his meaning. Isaiah lived about 700 years before Christ. He probably spent seventy years in public life, liv- ing altogether not much less than a hundred years. There is a tradition that under Manasseh he was placed between two planks and "sawn asunder" (Heb. xi 7 37), thus sealing prophetic ministry with martyr blood. Much critical interest has been manifested during this century in the book that bears our prophet's name. Both its genuineness and authenticity have been strenuously denied, at least as to a great part of the prophecies ; but it is quite fair to say that adverse criti- cism has not succeeded in showing that this great volume was not the work of Isaiah in every part, though undoubtedly demonstrating that it is not a continuous prophecy. It is almost certainly a com- pilation of a number of different prophetic writings, written at different times, of greater and lesser intervals, toward the close of the author's life, finally gathered together, according to some plan of the compiler, and compacted into one volume. It is by no means sure that Isaiah was not the editor of his own various works. These questions, however, do not fall within the scope of our studies, and I only mention them that the reader may know that I do not ignore them, and that in writing these studies I shall keep them constantly in mind, even though the presence of the critic docs not often appear on my page. The period in the history of Judah and Israel was peculiar and critical. For the first time the Theocratic nation was brought into real contact with the great world-powers. Hitherto Icrael had only had to do with minor and inferior nations lying close against their borders ; now we see Judah struggling with the Syrian, the Assyrian, the Egyptian, and finally with the great Babylonian power, which had recently attained great empire, and under whose hand she lat- terly succumbed. In the providence of Jehovah, this was overruled to spread the testimony of the true God among the nations of the earth and prepare the world for the coming of the long-promised Messiah. We shall not follow in detail the course of this history, but endeavor to make the most practical use of the selected lessons lying before us in its great volume. January 3, 1892. THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.— Isaiah xi, 1-10. (1) And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots : (2) And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord ; (3) And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord : and he shall not judge after the eight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears : (4) Eut with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth : and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. (5) And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. (6) The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them. (7) And the cow and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down together : and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (8) And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice 1 den. (9) They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain : for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (10) And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people ; to it shall the Gentiles seek ; and his rest shall be glorious. —Isaiah xi, 1-10. In the four Gospels we get a view of Christ from four different standpoints. Isaiah presents us with prophetic views of Christ by- much the same process. The several vivid pictures which illumi- nate his pages are of the Messiah viewed in this way. We have not here the Four-named Hero of the ninth, nor the Divine Sufferer of the fifty-third chapter, but the Spirit-anointed and God-breathing King, ruling the world with righteousness and bringing in the new creation, which shows the earth redeemed as well as man. The king set forth in this prophecy is a much more spiritual conception than that of the ninth chapter, and as we go further on in Isaiah we observe a steady advance in the spiritual character of the Messiah depicted on his pages. The opening of this particular vision is highly artistic. In the former chapters we have seen a storm of war and desolation sweeping over Israel and Judah. The Assyrians had cut down the ancient kingdom until but a stump was left ; then Assyria herself is cut off in wrath by the Almighty, until she also is in no better plight. But there is this difference : Assyria passes 2 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. away forever. No shoot springs up from the roots of her dead stump ; while from the apparently dried-up root of the stem of Jesse there bursts forth a young shoot, which finally grows into a strong and beautiful Branch, more mighty and more beautiful than the original tree from whose stump it sprang. Then we are led on to a view of the final doom of the world-powers and the ultimate triumph of Messiah's kingdom. Nothing in the Bible is more inspir- ing than the consistency with which holy men of old saw and prophesied of this final victory of Jehovah in righteousness over the rule of the world-powers. So much of these prophecies have been fulfilled that we should not for a moment waver in our faith, look- ing for the triumphant consummation of the rest. I.— THE ROOT OUT OF DRY GROUND. In the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah we have a similar description of the origin of Christ, from which we have designated him in this study. There he is described "as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground." Here he is a sprout from the bare and blasted stem of Jesse ; cut down as that tree had been, and to all appear- ance dead for centuries, it suddenly puts forth this young and green sapling. 1. — The Stem of Jesse. — This assignment of the King to the stem of Jesse, rather than to that of David, whose son Christ is every- where declared to be, is suggestive of the fact that, when Christ came, the house of David had sunk again into obscurity such as characterized it when he himself was called, a shepherd lad, from an humble family of a poor country district. When Christ came into the world, he was indeed the Son of David, but like David, he came forth from obscurity and poverty, appearing to his nation, as David appeared to his, at the time of its deepest and sorest need. In the history of the world, no earthly family ever suffered so long an eclipse as that of David, to be revived by the birth of a great son like Jesus. So no empire or kingdom of this world ever suffered so complete an overthrow as that of God's ancient people, to be once more settled and established. For two thousand years the Jewish nation has been extinct, but God has marvelously kept the Jewish people intact, for he intends to restore them again to their land and re-establish their kingdom on the throne of their father David in the person of David's Royal Son, our Saviour and Lord. On no other hypothesis can be based the miraculous preservation of the Jews from extinction during all these ages. (Matt, xxiv, 34.) THE SPIRITUAL ANOINTING. 3 2. — The Rod out of the Stem. — We have here an illustration of the prophet's manner of using double figures of speech without repetition of ideas. This "rod," or young shoot, sprung out of the old and blasted stem of Jesse, is very suggestive both of the youth of Jesus and the ministry of his first advent. We see him first a little babe in Bethlehem, just peeping his head, as it were, out of the side of the old lifeless stem, close down to the ground. How lowly was his birth ! Then we see him a vigorous shoot, as lie appeared a boy at twelve in the temple disputing with the doctors. By this time the "green sapling " began to give striking evidence that, though he sprang from an old and worn-out stem, yet there was a strong stream of life coursing through his veins. "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." (Luke ii, 52.) Young and vigorous, but not bearing fruit. So also we may say that the ministry of his first advent in antithesis to the glorious reign of his second, was as the comparison of a shoot to a fruitful branch. There was a strange majesty and kingliness about Jesus during his humiliation, but the fruit of a kingly branch was not yet seen. All the "power and potency" of his kingdom were in him, as all the ' ' power and potency " of the fruit is in the young shoot of a fruitful vine, while yet invisible. 3. — The Branch out of the roots. — Jesus is here called a Branch, in distinction from a rod or shoot, because the prophet sees him in the fullness of his fruitfulness as a King. "That which is at first a sapling gains strength and grows into a branch." (iv, 2.) Jeremiah describes his advent thus : "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise up unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice and judgment on the earth. And this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Jer. xxiii, 5, 6; xxxiii, 16; Zech. iii, 8 ; vi, 12.) It will be noted that in all these references the Branch is represented as being in an especial manner a righteous ruler and strong to bring in a reign of perfect peace, — fit fruit for such a Branch. H.— THE SPIRITUAL ANOINTING. This promised King is no ordinary man, though it is supposed by some that Isaiah saw in this description of a king the young and promising Hezekiah. Everything in the prophecy, however, points to the promised Messiah, who is none other than God himself man- ifest in the flesh. Speaking of the same person in another place 4 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. (xl, 9), Isaiah calls upon the people thus : "Behold your God." This is he whom we recognize in John i, 1-5, 14. Though he was "The Lord our Righteousness," yet, being also a man, and as such the servant of God (My Servant the Branch," Zech. iii, 8), he had need to be anointed with the Holy Ghost for his divine work. Therefore "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." (Compare Is. lxi, 1 ; Matt, iii, 16; Luke ii, 40; iv, 1, 14, 18; John iii, 34, etc.) The Spirit did not come to him transiently as it comes to men, but rested upon him permanently. It abode with him. We are not concerned to answer the speculative question regarding the relation of these two Divine Persons in the Godhead, but only to note the fact that as a man the Spirit of God was present with him, in whose wisdom and power he does all his work, fulfilling his office as Mes- siah. The presence of the Spirit here is manifested in various gifts which group themselves in three pairs, and then in one great char- acteristic. 1. — The gifts of the Spirit. — To men the Spirit distributes his gifts, giving to one man one gift and to another, another (I. Oor. xii, 8-11), but to our Lord the Spirit bestows all the range of gifts without measure, (i) "The spirit of wisdom and understanding." By "wisdom" we are to understand ultimate knowledge. He is the Eternal Word or Wisdom of God, in whose presence and in com- parison with whom the wisdom of this world is but foolishness. (I. Cor. i, 20.) By "understanding" is meant that same wisdom in respect to particular subjects. We might say of a thoroughly edu- cated lawyer who had been preferred to the bench, that he was wise or learned in the law, and, when a particular case came before him for trial, that he had a perfect understanding, not only of that particular case, but of the relation of the law thereto. Or we might say of a learned physician, that he was wise as to medicine in gen- eral, and had understanding in respect to particular cases. Such are the wisdom and understanding of our Lord, (ii) " The spirit of counsel and of might." That is, he had the power first to originate and plan the wisest course, and then to carry his devices into action and on to success. Some generals are good at planning battles, and others are good at executing the plans ; not many generals are both good strategists and brilliant fighters. Jesus was both wise to originate and courageous to execute his counsels, (iii) "The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord." That is, Jesus had perfect knowledge of the will of the Father. He said again and again that the words he spake and the utterances to which he gave expres- sion, were not the results of mere human thinking, but the absolute THE SriPJTUAL ANOINTING. 5 knowledge which lie had with the Father. "I speak to the world the things which I have heard of him (the Father)"; "I do noth- ing of myself, "but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things " ; "I speak that which I have seen with my Father." (John viii, 26, 28, 38. ) He not only had the knowledge, but the fear of the Lord. He perfectly knew the will of God, and had the spirit of per- fect obedience to do the things of God. So he says of himself in this connection: "And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone ; for I do always those things that please him" ; "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work." (John iv, 34; viii, 29.) This is true piety: not alone to know the will of God, but to have the will to do his will. The most casual reading of the record of Jesus' ministry on earth will show that these two things were ever his marked characteristics. 2. — Quick understanding. — This characteristic (v. 3) has given rise to much learned discussion as to its true meaning. It probably, almost certainly, means this : "He shall draw his breath in the fear of the Lord." In the former enumeration of spiritual enduements we see what was given him as it were from without ; but here we have described to us what was the inward characteristic of his life. God was the very atmosphere in which he lived. He literally drew his breath in the fear of the Lord. This in a peculiar manner describes his sinlessness. We at our best do not always make God the sole atmosphere of our lives. We breathe much that is in the world and of the world ; we breathe into our lives much that stirs up and inflames the sinful tendencies of our nature. But with Jesus, and with him alone, it was different. He never drew a breath except in the fear of the Lord, and thus breathing, he never inhaled aught that corrupted his sinless life. It is ours in a meas- ure to cultivate this privilege. How often some of us have risen up out of a stuffy house and gone out into the open air, and with what delight we have taken in a full breath of the clean and pure atmosphere ; how delicious the experience is, after having spent eleven months in the confines of a city, going in and out of all kinds of houses, and breathing in more or less of the pollution of the streets and the infection of sick rooms, to get away for a month into the mountains where there is perfect air ! But Jesus, though he lived and walked among and with sinners in the atmosphere